Laptop won't follow an editing step in a tutorial I am doing
You do not have to hold down any mouse click to scroll or change the size of the proportional editing circle. Emulating middle mouse emulates a middle mouse CLICK (ie pressing the mouse wheel down like a button).

In proportional editing, begin the editing command (whatever it is, move, scale, rotate, etc.) then you are free to scroll to make the proportional editing circle larger or smaller by simply scrolling, usually 2 fingers up or down on the trackpad.

you can also use Page Up &amp; Down, but some laptops won't have that.